Women’s tennis drops matches, eliminated from NWC tournament

Sara Levering, Copy Editor

The Linfield Wildcats entered the tournament as the number three seed for the Northwest Conference Tennis Tournament.

The ’Cats played shorthanded and were eliminated from the Northwest Conference Women’s Tennis Tournament by Whitman. Whitman notched a 5-0 victory over the ’Cats at the Lewis and Clark Tennis Dome in Portland, Oregon.

The Whitman Missionaries swept doubles 3-0. They continued to sweet second and fourth singles flights easily to get the victory over Linfield.

Sophomore Ella Riddle who consists of half of the number one doubles team and had consistently held the number one singles position over the entire season was out due to an injury, leaving only six healthy and available players to take on Whitman.

Junior Courtney Mostul filled in for Riddle with freshman Elsa Harris in the number one doubles position. The duo struggled against a tough Whitman number one duo 8-3.

Number two doubles consisting of the power sophomore duo, Marisa Doveri and Basia Kopecka were in reach of taking the match and putting Linfield on the scoreboard, but it slipped away, losing a tough-fought battle 8-6.

In number three doubles, junior Marisa Kume and sophomore Sierra Lemon struggled and were defeated 8-3, which gave Whitman their 3-0 lead to begin singles.

In singles action, only four singles matches began. Two were needed to close out the match for Whitman, that was done fairly easily. First to go down was Doveri 6-1, 6-2. The match that ultimately gave Whitman the win came from fourth singles, Kume, who lost 6-1, 6-1.

Harris moved up to play number one singles and had lost the first set in a tough-fought set 6-4 and play ended after the first set. Also, third singles played by Kopecka who also went down after a tough-fought set 6-4, she too did not continue to play, due to the match being already won by Whitman.